Wall Street showed some reassuring signs of stability Friday, closing mostly higher despite the biggest monthly decline in jobs in five years.

While some nervous investors fled to government bonds, the report, showing the economy gave up 80,000 jobs last month, appeared to simply confirm many investors’ assumptions of a widespread economic slowdown.

“The economic data is negative, but I think what the market’s telling us is we’ve priced in a lot of the bad news already,” said Arthur Hogan, chief market strategist at Jefferies & Co. “You could make the argument that we’ve thrown a lot of difficult news at this market and it’s reacted very well.”

The market’s next big test is likely to come with the release of first-quarter earnings reports in the coming weeks. Investors will be particularly keen to know what companies’ outlooks are for the rest of this year – if they are disappointing, Wall Street could see a return of the punishing volatility of the past few months.

Treasury prices jumped after the jobs report, as investors often seek the safety of government-backed bonds amid uncertainty about the economy. The yield on the benchmark 10-year note, which moves opposite its price, fell to 3.49 percent from 3.59 percent late Thursday.

The dollar was mixed against other major currencies, while gold prices rose.

Light, sweet crude rose $2.40 to settle at $106.23 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Retail gas prices, meanwhile, surged to a record above $3.30 a gallon, and appear ready to rise further as supplies tighten ahead of the summer driving season.

Friday’s moderate moves followed a modest rise Thursday in response to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s remarks that the Fed expects to recover most, if not all, the $29billion worth of loans it made to keep struggling Bear Stearns Cos. from collapse.

Remarks by Bernanke earlier in the week left the door open to another interest rate cut from the Federal Reserve.

“This (jobs) number still supports the notion that there’s likely going to be more monetary policy easing by the Fed,” said Michael Strauss, chief economist at Commonfund.